Drouhin Vaudon Chablis Les Clos 2020

The Moulin de Vaudon, the property of Joseph Drouhin, is an 18th Century watermill straddling the Serein River, close to the Grand Cru vineyards of Chablis. Flowing gently past hillsides covered with vineyards, the river has always been closely identified with Chablis and its region. Because of its unique location at the heart of their 38 hectare vineyard estate (95 acres), this historical mill is the headquarters of the Drouhin Domaine in Chablis.

Joseph Drouhin was a precursor and pioneer in this great wine region for 45 years and strengthened the identity of their prestigious Chablis Domaine. With this in mind, and starting with the 2008 vintage, the name "Vaudon" was placed on the labels of all of Drouhin's Chablis wines as a sign of the firm's allegiance to this historical terroir.

Les Clos is the largest and most famous Grand Cru vineyard in Chablis, located between Valmur on the left and Blanchot on the right. The exposure is responsible for its generous and powerful character. It is the cradle of Chablis, already recognized by the medieval monks as a superb location for planting a vineyard. The term “Les Clos” (enclosure, in French) probably refers to the surrounding wall that they built to fence off the parcel. This wall is no longer in existence. At the end of the 19th Century the vineyard was devastated by the phylloxera disease. In the 1960’s, Robert Drouhin was one of the first Beaune propriétaires to bring it back to life. Drouhin's Les Clos parcel is 1.3 ha (3.212 acres) with vines averaging 37 years. 

The soil in Les Clos has Kimmeridgian limestone which contains millions of tiny marine fossils embedded in a kind of whitish mortar which may have been once the bottom of the sea...hundreds of million years ago. This marine origin gives the wines of Chablis their unique flavor. The Drouhin family has been farming their Les Clos vines with biodynamic methods (which is organic-plus) since 1999, making the special character of the soils shine through even more. They also age the wine in oak for 12 months, but do not use any new oak, so as not to make the final wine taste oaky at all. 

Tasting note by winemaker Véronique Boss-Drouhin: A great wine, perhaps the one most able to express what the terroir of Chablis really is like. The colour is pale gold yellow, with greenish hints. Refined nose, with aromas of lily ("fleur de lys"), honey or preserved lemon. Astounding depth and velvety sensation ("gras") on the palate, with some delicate marine nuances. Intense and long aftertaste. After 5 or 6 years, even more complex and subtle aromas develop in the wine. A wine of incomparable finesse.